Fighting the black dog
by Mrstrentreznor
Summary: NM, AU. Jake goes weird and tells Bella she can't be his friend. She is so saddened by this. The black dog is a term for depression, and is also the colour of Sam's wolf. Warning: talk of depression and suicide.


One of my one shots for the Truly Anon Twi fic contest. 45 photo prompts, I wrote 13 stories. Clearly have major issues... lol

Prompt 42 – **runaway **was a B&W shot of a long haired girl in a hoodie - she sat on the ground with her back against a paling fence, her knees up and her face on her knees - wearing ratty converse sneakers.

Rating: MA - for themes

Word count: 2268

Disclaimer: _the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their Gods._

**New moon AU - the black dog is a term for depression, and is also the colour of Sam's wolf.**** Warning : talk of depression and suicide.**

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><p><strong>Fighting the black dog.<strong>

She curled up into a small ball and she cried. She wiped her tear stained face on her jeans and she hunkered down and just tried to keep going. Edward had left her; abandoned her in the forest and told her that she would just get over it. She had. After too many months of not reacting to anything at all, she had finally reacted to Jacob Black. He had teased small, human emotions out of her robotic state. He made her smile. He made her laugh.

He had brought warmth to her shattered heart.

And now he had dumped her, too.

They had gone to the movies together. He had pushed her into confessing that she liked him, more than anyone else. And he had held her hand and told her that he was prepared to wait for her. And then everyone had got the stomach flu.

She had turned her stomach inside out for a day. And when she phoned Jake he was sick, too. But he was weird; he sounded flat and unemotional. And so _not_ Jake.

He hadn't phoned her back and Charlie said he had seen him on the rez, Harry said he had Mono, Billy said he wasn't at home and had taken a friend to Port Angeles. Everyone was lying to her. Well maybe not Charlie; he had no reason to lie.

She already thought she was going insane. She had started hearing Edward's voice in her head. She had started indulging in behaviour that made the voice angry. Riding motorcycles and approaching strangers in the street. And how crazy was that?

She'd be cutting herself with razorblades and thinking about more final solutions next. As if she hadn't already crossed that line? She had wanted to be a vampire. She had wanted to be dead. Not dead and rotting the way everyone else who died ended up, but dead and still running around; like a vampire. She had only admitted that to herself when she had driven out to La Push and argued with Jake.

She had for one heart stopping moment; wished to be a vampire. [NM p323] And she had wished it for all the wrong reasons. It was malicious. She had only wished it, so that she could hurt Sam Uley.

For taking Jake away from her.

She and Jake had fought. He had told her that he couldn't be her friend anymore and he had told her to go home. And then he had just walked away from her.

She had stood there, outside his little house and waited pathetically. It even started raining and she still stood there, until Billy came out with pity in his eyes, and told her that he had called Charlie to say that she was on her way home. It was the pity that had finally made her move.

She hadn't gone home. She had driven for a little way until she could no longer see and then she had got out of her truck and just walked. She had to move, but she knew it would be dumb to try and drive.

She had finally just sat down and cried. With her back against someone's side fence.

So now she knew about vampires and werewolves and she still wasn't anything strong enough to hurt Sam Uley. Or even to protect herself from Laurent. Or Victoria.

She was nothing.

She was the kind of girl who fell in love with her whole heart; her whole being and then got dumped. She would have literally died for Edward. Her first High School sweetheart. He may as well have just killed her in the forest. It would have been less painful for her. She had mourned him as if _he_ had died. Edward was so rigid in his ideals. He had been a virgin for so long, because he made up his mind to remain so. If he had decided to leave her, then he was **never** coming back. Regardless of the reasons why he had left her. If he had lied and done it to save her, it hadn't worked.

She was worse off now.

He had said that it would be as if he had never existed. She was starting to think that it would have been easier if **she** had never existed. If she could make herself disappear; would it stop hurting?

She had other friends. Why was Jake dumping her, such a life altering event?

Because she had really liked him. He was happy and warm and dark skinned and physical and mechanical and everything that Edward wasn't. She had seen five giant wolves in the meadow with Laurent and the russet one had Jake's eyes. And now she knew that he was a werewolf, he really was everything that Edward wasn't. His polar opposite.

And he had liked her; _liked_, liked.

And she had just realised that she liked him, too. Too late.

She had even told him that she thought he was 'sort of beautiful'; an awful, badly phrased, stumbling teenage girl confession that had made him smile and ask her if she had banged her head harder than she thought.

She banged her head now. She let it fling back and thump into the paling fence at her back.

"Ooh, that's gotta hurt," she heard.

She looked up.

For a second, she thought it was Jake. He looked like him, but bigger. Then she recognised him. It was Quil Ateara. She had given him a lift earlier that day, before she had fought with Jake. She had picked him up at the side of the road and he had poured out to her, how worried he was about his friends, and himself. He thought he'd be next to join Sam's freaky cult.

"Quil."

"Can I join you? Or is this a solo pity party?"

She waved expansively at the space next to her. "Feel free. Plenty of pity to go around."

He sat; mirroring her stance with his back against the fence and his knees up.

Silence.

"Jake?" he asked carefully.

"Said he couldn't be my friend anymore."

"You too, huh."

"Yeah."

Silence.

She wanted to say something, but she wasn't sure what it was. She took a glance at him. Sitting next to her, he was as big as Jake was; no bigger. Certainly wider.

"Is your ass damp?" he asked suddenly.

She uttered a small giggle. "Yeah," she confessed. The rain had left the ground saturated.

She giggled again.

"What?" Quil asked.

"I left my truck somewhere. I don't even know where," she confessed.

"That's okay," Quil said. "We don't have far to go." He nodded a head at the fence behind them. "This is my house."

"Oh… sorry."

He smiled at her. "S'okay."

He stood and reached a big hand down to her. She took it and he pulled her up to her feet. "Come on. We can find the truck later."

She followed him. He loaned her a pair of track suit pants that belonged to his mother. Nothing of his would fit her. She was sitting at his kitchen table sipping coffee and talking about movies, when Jake came thundering in the back door.

He grabbed her out of the chair and he wrapped his long arms around her and hugged her against his naked chest.

"What the fuck, Black?" Quil swore at him.

"I'm so sorry, Bells," Jake apologised. He pulled back and held her face in his hands. He looked at her with those big brown eyes and he radiated concern and love. "Charlie rang when you didn't make it home … and then we found your truck just abandoned… and I was so frightened that something awful had happened to you… and I am so sorry that I made you cry."

She didn't answer him. She couldn't speak. The tears welled up in her eyes again. She had really thought that she couldn't cry anymore.

"Oh, no, Bells. Please, don't cry. I am so sorry. And I will never be that mean to you ever again… I promise… please, Bells. Forgive me." He started to kiss the tears from her face.

And something within her; her aching damaged heart inflated, just a little.

"You said you couldn't be my friend anymore," she whimpered at him.

"I know… but if I can't be your friend, maybe I can be something else?" he suggested. "Something more permanent?"

"Like a steady?" she asked.

He beamed at her. "Yeah. Like that." It was that Jake smile that he only ever gave her. "So, you sort of wanna go steady? Because I am sort of beautiful?" he teased.

She rolled her eyes.

Quil chortled. "You did not say that!"

Bella sighed. "I sort of did." She paused. "I had banged my head at the time," she defended. "Had to go get stitches."

Quil laughed.

Jake dumped her back on the chair suddenly. "I have to tell the others," he said. He dashed back out the kitchen door, into the yard and emitted an odd howling bark.

Bella and Quil exchanged a look. Bella smiled nervously. She knew he was calling the pack. But Quil didn't know about them, yet. She was fairly sure that his heritage and his size were omens.

"You found her?" Embry asked within minutes as he ran in the door.

By then she was happily perched on Jake's lap. He kept brushing her back with his big hand and playing with her hair. And he constantly kissed her. Little, small, warm presses of his lips against the skin of her face and her neck. And each one was absorbed into her skin and inflated her heart just a little more.

She sighed happily.

"Oh hey, Quil," Embry finally thought to add.

"Embry," Quil nodded at him formally.

Embry reached out and punched him in the top of the shoulder. "Missed you, bro," he said.

"Uh huh," said Quil.

And then Jared and Paul; the whole rest of the pack came in, in dribs and drabs, and one of them brought her truck. And then they started looking in the fridge for food. When Sam finally entered, he still wore his stoic hard face. Quil just watched them all with a more confused look on his face.

Jake looked mutinous. He glared at Sam.

"You found her," Sam stated obviously. He looked at Jake's face and uttered a small sigh. "All right," he agreed, to some unasked question.

Jake nodded. He hugged Bella in closer.

"Did anybody call Charlie?" Sam asked.

A chorus of 'no's answered him. "Quil?"

Quil pointed at the wall phone silently.

Sam nodded at him. "Thanks."

He rang Charlie and spoke to him, then passed the phone to Bella.

"Hey, Dad," she said. "Yeah… sorry… didn't mean to scare you… I was crying and couldn't drive… no, I didn't go near the forest… why? … another hiker dead?…"

The pack all twitched.

"Yes," Bella said. "Straight home… no diversions… Jake?... yes he might come with me… if I asked him… okay… see you later…"

"Right!" Sam announced. "Things to do." He looked at Jake. "Take her home and come straight back," he ordered. "The rest of you, out!"

"Can we talk?" Jake asked.

He followed Sam outside, leaving Bella and Quil standing in the oddly empty kitchen. She looked at Quil. She couldn't tell him the secret; she knew that. But he needed something. "It'll be okay Quil. It's not a cult."

"If you say so," he said, but he looked happier.

She knew that what it was, in reality, was supernatural and magic and not to be believed. But if the different guys that made up the pack had all found a place, then there was one for him, too. She hugged him impulsively.

"Thanks for everything, Quil."

"Thanks for bringing my friends back," he whispered to her, "Even if they followed you in like stray dogs."

She laughed.

Quil didn't get the joke, but he would.

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><p><strong>AN: i have veered from canon a little; Bella gets Jake is a wolf after he visits her room and can't talk to her in the books... but the picture matched how bereft she was when Jake dumped her outside his house.<strong>

FF_2154210_1313966867 - 14/02/2012 10:58:00 AM


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